Recently the wireless industry has had an increasing interest on Machine to Machine (M2M) communications or Machine Type Communications (MTC) linked to technologies like Smart Grid, Wireless Sensor Networks, and applications focused on maximizing the control of resources and the tracking of vehicles and goods. M2M uses a device (sensor, meter, etc.) to capture an ‘event’ (temperature, inventory level, etc.), which is relayed through a network (wireless, wired or hybrid) to an application (software program), that translates the captured event into meaningful information (e.g., items need to be restocked). MTC relies on devices interacting to produce data with little, if any, human assistance, but that data has to be available for use by humans. User interfaces and mechanisms allow an easy query, or in general terms, an intuitive experience and interaction. Today's communication networks, e.g., mobile operator networks, have been designed and built to fit the needs of human communication. At the same time machine-to-machine (M2M) communication solutions have emerged that are available on the market today. However, such solutions are mostly monolithic infrastructures that do not interoperate.
Related to MTC is the Internet of Things (IoT), which is a computing concept where physical objects may be connected to the Internet and identify themselves to other devices. IoT services rely on the locating and tracking of connected objects. IoT refers to identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is often seen as a prerequisite for the IoT to allow management and inventorying of devices by computers. Radio frequency systems employ a transmitted signal that is received by some mobile devices within the network. The RF is used in several estimation techniques such as the received signal strength intensity, angle of arrival, time of flight (ToF) and after it is employed by triangulation to calculate the node's position
An Access Point (AP) may periodically provide location reports to stations, which have currently connectivity with this AP. Components that connect into a wireless medium in a network are referred to as stations. Stations are equipped with wireless network interface controllers (WNICs). Wireless stations fall into one of two categories: access points, and clients. Access points (APs), normally routers, are base stations for the wireless network. They transmit and receive radio frequencies for wireless enabled devices to communicate with. Wireless clients can be mobile devices such as laptops, personal digital assistants, IP phones and other smartphones, or fixed devices such as desktops and workstations that are equipped with a wireless network interface.
A reporting AP delivers the information as part of the Location Configuration Information Report. A Location Configuration Information report includes location information for the reporting AP, e.g., latitude, longitude and altitude information. For ToF location, an initiator, e.g., a station, needs to know the location of each responding unassociated AP to become self-aware of its location after calculating the range of a responding AP. The IEEE 802.11 standard provides a way to query the AP that the station is associated with for the AP's location. However, there is no way to query an AP for the locations of other APs. Further, the number of times the protocol is performed to obtain unassociated AP locations is currently too great.